It was almost 11 when the steward yelled into the room. In essence in Norwegian it was get up and get out. (Since not too much is going on I have read and slept an incredible amount of time.) Today was the day that he changes sheets, mid-way of the cruise. After lunch we finally had some samples to work on. A core sample had been done in the am and it was successful. Since we are over 9000 feet of water everything takes time. I hooked up with Dr. Lisa Ovreas a microbiologist. Most of the scientists on board are geologists, a few chemists, and three biologists. The cores were very interesting. We could pinpoint volcanic activity, iron layers, and foraminifera. Lisa prepared samples of different layers to check for bacteria. The chemists were extracting water to test pH and such. The ship was suddenly a flurry of activity. Most of us that have been on prior cruises realize that this one was different with the amount of down time. At any rate I was happy to help Lisa with her samples.

At 7 pm we had a plane drop with the ROV part. This was supposed to happen a day or so before but the planes on Svalbard had issues. (When the plane flew over I was reminded of the 5 o'clock Charlie show on MASH)

The plane drop

After the drop, everyone was on deck for it, we finished working on the second core. I left as Lisa and Hakon (a doctoral student........did you know that the government pays students to get their doctorate?) were prepping for tomorrow, not much for me to do at that point. The ROV was now working, the CTD now had issues with the water sampling bottles but not the sensors. Rolf thinks that they are narrowing down the area. I have made only one or two breakfasts at this point, I just don't know how I keep sleeping.